The story of my username is boring: Wrestling was popular on TV back when I was a child. My two-years-older brother and I would have mock matches. (He always won because he was two years older, 30 or so pounds heavier and a boy, but I was pretty sneaky!).
I named him Woodchuck McGluck and named myself Skinnybones Lampshade. My mother laughed when I told her the name I’d made up for myself. It’s one of the only times I remember making her laugh.
So there you go.
That’s actually a feature not a bug. It’s intentionally different from the parliamentary system and is designed to slow down the legislative process and force compromise. For most of our history it worked. Right now things are a bit extreme.
How is it intentionally different? The parliamentary system barely existed when the Constitution was written.
Well, the parliamentary system existed, but it was a different parliamentary system. 
When Montesquieu was writing about separation of powers and checks and balances, he had the British system as a working model: the King as chief executive did not directly control Parliament and had to find ways to work with the two Houses. That’s very similar to the US model.
The more modern system of responsible government that we associate with Westminster evolved in the early part of the 19th century, and was first clearly set forth in a British government document in Lord Durham’s Report on 1838.
Who pays for this nonsense for 15 months?
One of the more bizarre aspects of an utterly bizarre system.
Ha. Ha Ha. Ha ha ha.
Oh, you were serious…Just look at comments on BREXIT if you think this is correct.
Poor wording on my part. The point was it was designed so that there had to be a slow process with compromise. You might not like it but it works the way it was intended to work.
The length of the campaign period is insane though. No one likes that but there is no mechanism that says “campaigns start now” so people keep starting earlier. The nonsense with Congress refusing to acknowledge the president is new to this election cycle.
The candidates do. That’s why candidates are invariably wealthy, and they spent a huge amount of time soliciting donations from other wealthy people. Also, the media realises that elections equal ratings, so they are willing to drop everything to cover the election, no matter how early.
The key point is that no one tells someone when they are allowed to start. I would argue that we have been listening to Hillary since 1992. If you think about it, we’re been watching a 24 year presidential campaign.
Other have commented on the general difference between a parliamentary system and the US congressional-presidential system, but I thought I would mention two key differences:
(1) in a parliamentary system, the party leaders are chosen well in advance of the election, sometimes years in advance, while in the US system, the candidate selection process occurs in the same year as the election itself. That inevitably increases the election period in the US, but shortens it in Canada.
(2) once elected, party leaders in a parliamentary system are required to work in Parliament, not gallivant all over the country, so the campaign only starts once the writ drops.
On the first point, for example, Canada had a general election on October 19, 2015. Of the parties who had a seat in the Commons going into the election, here’s the dates each of the party leaders were chosen:
• Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Conservatives): March 20, 2004 - 9 years before the election.
• Leader of the Official Opposition, Thomas Mulcair (NDP): March 24, 2012 - 3 years before the election.
• Justin Trudeau (Liberals): April 14, 2013 - 2 years before the election.
• Giles Duceppe (Bloc québécois): June 10, 2015 - 4 months before the election.
• Elizabeth May (Green Party): August 26, 2006 - 9 years before the election.
(The late selection date for Gilles Duceppe was unusual. The party had elected a separatist firebrand a few years before, who managed to alienate all of his caucus and fracture the party. He stepped down in the spring and recommended that the party council choose Duceppe, the former leader, to run in the election. Duceppe was a popular choice in the party and managed to revitalise it, so they increased their seat standing from 2 to 10. However, Duceppe did not win the riding he ran in, and thus is not in the new Parliament, so he has resigned as leader. I think they have an interim leader, pending the next leadership contest.)
On the second point, the other major difference between the two systems is that once a party chooses its leader, that leader is normally in Parliament, working every day in the public eye. That’s how the party leaders in our system campaign - by working in Parliament. They don’t have the time or resources to travel all over the country to campaign and neglect their parliamentary duties. In fact, they would be in breach of the rules of the Commons if they did so. Once in the Commons, their duty is to work in the Commons, and thus let the Canadian voters judge their performance on the job. There’s no equivalent to that in the US system.
The actual congressional elections are comparably short in the U.S. Primaries are just happening now for November election, which means a 3-4 month cycle. On a non-presidential election year, the whole thing’s fairly short. And the leaders of Congress can be chosen any time - e.g. Paul Ryan, leader of the House, was picked 10 months ago.
If you go with the idea that the President is completely independent and not a party leader (as intended), then getting one person around the whole country takes a little time.
This isn’t true everywhere. Some states do it with their presidential primary. (For example, Ohio’s primaries are in May normally, so the presidential primary is only a month and a half early.)